Copyrighted by Lorna Tedder. Originally published in Third Degree of Contrast.
Oh, man. I caught a whiff of baby fever today.
I had to take care of getting some documents notarized and into the mail right away. The post office line was longer than during the week before Christmas and I didn’t get into the line right away because I had to package some paperwork for my attorney then and there. Meanwhile, the line of customers inched along.
The last to get in line was a woman with a tiny baby, about three months old. Just old enough to hold his head up and coo and fuss about the wait in that soft mewling that tiny babies make. The woman was balancing baby, purse, cash, and keys. The sight of her on her feet for so long took me immediately back to when I used to hold my own babies at that age, though I felt the ache of memory in my bones. Shannon, after all, was a very difficult birth, and it was many months after before I could stand for long and embarrassing longer than anyone I knew who’d had a C-section at the same time. With Aislinn, it was much easier.
“You were in line,” the woman told me as I took my place behind her. “You were here first.”
I insisted she go ahead of me. I knew mine would take much longer and the baby was fretful, having missed some of his nap.
We chatted in line as I watched the adorable little one cuddled in her arms with his cheek against her chest. “Tree-frog position,” as I used to call it with my girls.
Watching him brought back so many memories, good ones. It was hard at times, yes, working full-time in a stressful job and being a mom, but still wonderful memories.
But the thing that most made me smile was watching this woman do the “Mommy Rock.” Completely oblivious to it, too. Standing there with her baby in her arms, rocking from side to side, jiggling the baby with her swaying as she whispered nonsense into his ear.
It reminded me of so many nights, of doctors’ offices,
of hallways outside of restaurants, where I walked with my little one in my arms, doing the Mommy Rock and singing some soft lull-a-bye from the 8th century, whispering into my baby’s ear where no one else could hear the words or tune, sharing it just with her in a private moment between mother and child.
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